Kansas City Smoke Track Club

At a little after 5:00 on a Wednesday afternoon, a dozen runners gather at a sun-baked high school parking lot in the Kansas City suburbs. It's 105 humid degrees out, and the mid-summer sun still hangs high in the sky. The plan: 800m repeats at race pace.

Common sense would suggest that early morning might be a better time for such a grueling workout, when the temperatures dip below 90. But these are working folks. For them it's the hottest part of the day or not at all.

For now, however, the heat is the least of their concerns. A tall chain-link fence and a sturdy padlock separate them from the track where they usually train. And the track itself has been torn up to be resurfaced--a situation nobody bothered to tell them about.

"Welcome to our world," says Eric Hunt, director of the Kansas City Smoke track club. "We've had to move during a workout because of a high school soccer game. We've even had security guards kick us off of tracks."

Founded in 2002, the Smoke was among the earliest members of the USATF's Elite Development Club Program, which was established to develop nationally and internationally competitive athletes. They're a group of a dozen or so good 23- to 35-year-old runners, all of whom did well in high school and at small colleges, but none of whom will ever become a top-level elite athlete. And they know it. They're not at all ashamed to refer to themselves as "sub-elite."

Yet they keep at their sport as hard as they can, traveling to compete at national track meets when they can afford it (and sometimes sleeping in their cars once they get there), nabbing $100 prizes at local races and generally striving to be the very best that they can be, even if few witness the small glory that comes along with it. They have a deal with Brooks to get shoes and apparel at wholesale prices, and they get free entry into most local races. A new sponsorship with the Kansas City Sports Commission should provide some leverage, but the chance to do workouts together and embracing the continued commitment to the racing might be the club's biggest perks.

The club won the men's division of the 2008 USATF National Club Track & Field Championships, but it certainly helped that it was held in Olathe, Kan., on the outskirts of Kansas City. Jason McCullough, 32, the head cross country coach at Fort Hays State, won the 10,000m in 31:35.05, while teammates James Henry, 25, an assistant coach at Missouri State, took second in the 800m (1:51.99) and Joe Moore, 26, then a tutor at Kansas State University, placed third in both the 1500m (4:00.64) and 10,000m (32:03). Last year, when the meet was held in New York City, the club finished 11th overall (ninth in the men's standings, 16th in women's). Melissa Todd took third in the 5,000m (17:10:12) while McCullough was third in the 10,000m (31:55.38).

Faced with the padlocked track, the team decides to drive to another high school track a few miles away. After a 15-minute warm-up jog, they take off for their first 2-lap repeat. They run as a pack most of the way. But right at the end one runner, a guy with shoulder-length hair and two zebras tattooed on his chest, breaks away.

"That's Rikki Hacker," says Shawn Love, the Smoke's founder and original director, who has come by to watch the workout. "That guy is amazing. He can run a 1:53 800 without even training. He can run a quality mile and then turn around and run a strong marathon."

He's also a little crazy, a prototypical club athlete. For several years after college, Hacker lived entirely on running. He would run several races each weekend, lured by the prizes as small as $100. He even ran up Kansas City's tallest building for $300. "I knew it was keeping me alive," he says. "I didn't have to work. Just train, sleep and eat."

He has a good job as a trainer at a health club now. But he can't quite let go of his obsession with competition. Several days before today's speed workout, he won a marathon in nearby Marysville, Mo. And the week before that, he ran a mile at a track meet, followed immediately by a mile road race, followed the next day by a 20K, at which he placed second.

Hacker sprints to finish his first 800 in 2:19 and jogs over to a cooler to rub some ice on the back of his neck. "I feel kind of beat," he says. His day started at 6 a.m. with a core-strength training class he teaches. That was followed immediately by a personal training session, and then a spin class, then another core class, topped off with a resistance training.

Hacker runs three more 800s in the 2:20 range, all with the same kick at the end. As he does, his girlfriend, Melissa Todd, finishes up her workout, a sustained pace run, and watches Hacker with Love. "She's the best runner in Kansas City," Love says, introducing Todd.

Todd is the kind of athlete the USATF had in mind when it started the Elite Development Clubs Program. And for the past couple of years, Todd, a six-time NCAA Division III All-American at Carthage College in the 1990s, has really capitalized on it, devoting her life almost entirely to running. With a Ph.D. in counseling under her belt, she knows she has a long, prosperous career waiting for her whenever she wants. But her window of opportunity for being the best athlete she can be is right now, and it's short.

It's not an easy gig. She's not quite elite enough to be fully supported by her running, so she still works part-time as a counselor, earning far less than she should be able to with her degrees. Hacker helps her out as well. "There's this dilemma that you should grow up and do what you're supposed to be doing with your life," she says, gesturing quote marks around grow up and supposed to. "Many times we tell ourselves we shouldn't be doing this."

Since switching to near full-time training a couple of years ago, however, her times have improved dramatically. "Work impairs your running," she says. Todd finished eighth in the U.S. 10-mile championships in Minneapolis in 2008 (58:50) and this winter won the Rock 'n' Roll Dallas Half Marathon in 1:16:46, the latter helping her earn a spot on the Mizuno Racing Team.

Her goal is to qualify for the 2012 Olympic trials in the marathon by running 2:47 or faster in the next 18 months (or a 1:15 half marathon), but to date her fastest is a 2:51:15 effort from Twin Cities last fall. "A lot of people finish college and they're content with the competition they've had there," Hunt says. "But this team is for those of us who still want to go out and just try to see what we can get out of the talent we've been given. We might never be the best, but we still want to see what heights we can reach."

This year's USATF National Club Track & Field Championships was held July 9-10 in San Francisco.

Having helped train two dozen Olympians since its inception in 1934, the Shore Athletic Club has long been one of the country's preeminent track clubs. It dominated the men's division of last year's USATF club championships and won the overall title, thanks in part to the strong middle-distance efforts of former Seton Hall standout Rob Novak, who was third in the 800m (1:52.12), fourth in the 1500m (3:55.28), ran on the second-place distance medley relay and anchored the winning 4x800m relay.

This 37-year-old club started with the help of legendary distance coach Bill Squires has produced top-tier runners at all levels and has won numerous Boston Marathon team championships. It finished second in last year's championships on the strength of strong relays, fourth-place 5,000m finishes from Dan Smith (15:05.54) and Meghan Lynch (17:40.78), and a near domination of the field events.

The CPTC, which dates back to 1972, was a close third in last year's national champion-ships (second in women's standings, fifth in men's) thanks to the efforts of Katharine Irvin, who won the 1500m (4:26.66), 5,000m (17:04.51) and ran the anchor leg of the winning distance medley relay, and Natalie Gingerich, who was second at 1500m and helped the distance medley relay and the 4x800m relay earn victories.